World Week for Peace in Palestine Israel Vigil in Birmingham

On Thursday 3 June at 1pm, a local network of Christians will hold a vigil in the grounds of St Phillips Cathedral, as part of a ‘World Week for Peace in Palestine Israel’.

The event is being coordinated by the West Midlands Christian Network for a Just Peace for Palestine, a group involved in advocacy and campaigning, and affiliated with the new national campaign, ‘A Just Peace for Palestine’.

The ‘World Week for Peace in Palestine Israel’ is an initiative of the World Council of Churches, who have invited all those “who share the hope of justice” in Palestine/Israel to “take peaceful actions, together, to create a common international public witness”.

Revd. Ray Gaston, Interfaith Enabler in Birmingham for the Methodist Church, says that the vigil will stress the need to “build bridges not walls”. “We will be saying that ‘it is time for Palestine’ – time for Palestinians and Israelis to share a just peace, and time for equal rights.”

The vigil will be a mixture of prayer, silence and reflection, responding to the call of Palestinian Christians in the ‘Kairos Palestine’ document, published last year, for Christians worldwide to “help us get our freedom back” and “help the two peoples attain justice, peace, security and love”.

While the vigil is organised by Christians, the reflections will be led by women of the three faiths of the Holy Land:

· Salma Yaqoob – a Muslim and a local councillor, anti-war and community activist. Salma was one of the leaders of the Birmingham campaign against the Israeli bombing of Gaza in 2009.

· Barbara Payman – a Jewish woman and member of a local Reform Congregation. Barbara is a trustee of the interfaith charity Spirit of Peace that works closely with The Jerusalem Peacemakers, an interfaith network working for reconciliation in the Holy Land.

· Shari Brown – a Christian and the Coordinator of Restore (a project of Birmingham Churches supporting refugees). Shari recently spent three months as an Accompanier with the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI).


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Event contact: Revd. Ray Gaston, Interfaith Enabler, Birmingham Methodist Church, Tel. 0775 11 55 124 or email wmcnjpp2010@yahoo.com

Website for the World Council of Churches’ ‘World Week for Peace in Palestine Israel’
http://www.oikoumene.org/en/events-sections/wwppi.html

Website for the ‘A Just Peace for Palestine’ campaign
http://www.justpeaceforpalestine.org/

DISCIPLESHIP IN A MULTI FAITH WORLD

This Spring I have been developing my work in the Birmingham District and ecumenically. I have been running courses for The Worcester & Malvern Circuits, Hall Green Council of Churches and working with a Cell Group at Saltley Methodist Church, a taster workshop for the Asbury Circuit and continue working with an ecumenical group of Church Leaders in Shirley. What is nice is that each group has a very different dynamic and different needs. So under the broad banner of Faith Hope & Love - Exploring Christian Discipleship in a Multi Faith World, I work out a specific programme with each of the groups. With Saltley we are getting into some serious bible study in our second session we took a look at the story of Abraham and what it might have to say for Christian engagement with other Faiths today. With Worcester and Malvern I am running three Saturday workshops - The first in April was on Exploring Bible & Theology in a Multi Faith World , and the Third at the end of June will be looking at Exploring Christian Spirituality in A Multi Faith World. The second workshop was last Saturday on the theme of Exploring Other Faiths and the group came and spent the day in Birmingham visiting a Mosque , a Hindu Temple and meeting with the workers and young people at the FEAST - a Christian initiative to bring Christian and Muslim young people together. The picture above shows that the encounter with the young Muslim people from the Feast was not only inter faith but inter generational too - bringing Muslim young people together with Christian elders it was a great day.
I also had the privilage of presenting a session at the District Spring Synod and will be running a workshop at the Building Vision Day this coming weekend in Handsworth. I am exploring with the Asbury circuit about a course in the autumn and a workshop on preaching in a multi faith world with preachers in Evesham.

If you would like me to come and work in your circuit or with a group in your church get in touch!

UPDATE ON 'A HEART BROKEN OPEN'

I have been informed by the publishers that well over 300 copies of my book have now been sold since the official release at the beginning of March. I also see that Peace News have a nice review of it in their May edition, although the subeditors choice of title disappointingly asserts old misunderstandings about the arabic word for God.

I have also been invited onto the Rattansi & Ridley Show that is broadcast through Sky on Press TV to talk about the book.

There is also going to be a Leeds/Bradford launch of the book on 26th May organised by The Leeds Church Institute and Bradford Churches for Dialogue and Diversity.

A QUICK VISIT TO LEEDS

Last Saturday (May Day) I had a quick trip up to my old stomping ground in Hyde Park Leeds as I had been invited to speak at The Makkah Masjid's 'Connecting Communities' event that opens their annual Islamic Exhibition. Makkah Masjid is a lovely space built by the local Muslim community from money they raised themselves. It was nice to see old friends and new, especially Imam Qari Asim, son of my late friend and teacher Professor Hafiz Fateh Muhammad Sahib and to discover that my successor at All Hallows, Revd Steve Smith, who has continued developing the links with the mosque, was present at the event and had recently himself been invited to speak at the celebrations for the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad.

Asim was kind enough to ask me to bring copies of my book to sell and then bought 10 copies for the Mosque!

SUPPORT SALMA YAQOOB FOR MP

I’ve been out a few times this week leafleting for Salma Yaqoob’s campaign to become the first Muslim woman MP in the UK. Standing on a progressive programme of investment, green initiatives, ethical foreign policies and for a vigorous and creative defence of multiculturalism , she has a real chance of being elected in my local constituency of Hall Green, where in the Sparkbrook ward she has been an impressive councillor for the last 4 years.

Salma has developed a significant national political profile appearing on Question Time and national media in her role as campaigning councillor and anti-war activist. Although officially standing as a Respect Party candidate she has built a good progressive alliance in support of her campaign beyond traditional party boundaries, with the Green Party officially endorsing her candidacy and support coming from major figures in the local Labour Party; including the public support of outgoing principled MP Lynne Jones who resides in the Moseley and Kings Heath ward of the Constituency.

Salma's faith inspired politics should be appealing to Christians committed to community action and global justice. She spoke at my book launch about how influenced she is by Islamic liberation theologian Farid Esack - a leading activist in the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa in 1980s and a prominant voice in the Global South initiated interfaith Peace for Life movement. She draws inspiration from creative radicals like Arundhati Roy and Naomi Klein - she represents a real possibility of having a Member of Parliament committed to the radical global justice movement as well as being a locally rooted MP, resisting cuts in public services, promoting green initiatives, campaigning for an ethical foreign policy and resisting the rising tide of racism and Islamophobia.

If you live in Hall Green constituency please consider voting for her and actively supporting her campaign.

If you don't live in Hall Green consider actively support her campaign.

For more information ring 07812 172 885

Follow Salma's campaign through her regularly updated blog at http://www.salmayaqoob.com/

EDL DEFEATED IN DUDLEY

I was unable to get to Dudley on Holy Saturday when the racist EDL came to town but by all accounts there was an excellent united local response. This developed around a locally inter faith inspired One Borough initiative and led to a creative and peaceful counter gathering with the Bishop of Dudley speaking, organised by local inter faith networks, Muslim community groups and Unite Against Fascism.

The EDL exposed their true colours - frustrated by not being able to wind up or get into a fight with a confrontational counter demo (because there wasn't one!) they sought to break the police lines and attacked a mosque but were quickly contained by police. Any nonsense about the EDL not being racist and Islamophobic can now surely be put to rest and the change in attitude by the police authorities in Dudley to how they reacted when the EDL came to Birmingham, should now be repeated around the country. The EDL are an anti Muslim pogrom movement - and if they can't be banned from gathering then they should be treated as violent hooligans and policed in that fashion.

The excellent anti fascist and local community response in Dudley should also be repeated wherever the EDL threaten to gather - concentrating on drawing together a wide coalition of groups for a creative peaceful counter-gathering, away from the EDL, that celebrates multiculturalism rather than directly confronting the EDL, whilst building a strong broad local consensus that demands the police authorities approach policing of the EDL as defending local communities from their abuse and violent attack rather than facilitating the EDL's 'right to protest'.

Buddhist Christian?

One of the least talked about but growing phenomenons in our contemporary culture is the rise of Buddhism in the west and the increasing number of Christians who are finding benefit in a serious engagement with Buddhism some of whom end up becoming Buddhists. In my last parish the congregation included people who termed themselves Christian - Buddhists, people who were in relationships with Buddhists and/or incorporated Buddhist practices into their own spirituality and others who had less neatly worked out relationships with Buddhism and Christianity even if they strongly and publically identified with one over the other..

One of the most read books on the reading list of my recent module at Queen's on Christianity and Dialogue was Paul Knitter's latest work Without Buddha I could not be a Christian so widely read amongst the Buddhist stream was it that the librarian has ordered extra copies for next year!

I have discovered that Paul now has a blog How a Buddhist Christian Sees It and there is also an interesting podcast of him in discussion on 'Walking more than one path - Is multi religious belonging possible?'

As an alternative to Knitter's approach you can take a look at Harold Netland and Keith Yendall Buddhism: A Christian Exploration and Appraisal which whist respectful and engaing with Buddhsim take a more traditional view of Buddhist - Christian Relations. Or to see how Buddhist - Christian interface has been explored in Sri Lanka see Aloysius Pieris ' Love meets Wisdom